Becky Watts trial: Defendants 'live in fantasy world'

Nathan Matthews (top right) and girlfriend Shauna Hoare (bottom right) are accused of murdering Becky Watts (left)

The trial of a man and woman accused of murdering teenager Becky Watts has been told the defendants live in a "fantasy world" where "lies are told".

Prosecutor William Mousley QC said the couple had "lied and lied and lied again" at Bristol Crown Court.

The jury heard Becky's stepbrother Nathan Matthews and his girlfriend Shauna Hoare "did not like her" and wanted her as a "sexual plaything" .

Mr Matthews and Ms Hoare deny murdering the 16-year-old.

Mr Matthews admitted he had killed Becky after panicking during an attempt to kidnap and scare her, but insists Miss Hoare had no part in it.

In his closing statement, Mr Mousley told the jury: "The real world where you and I live is a world of good sense and logic, where obvious and safe conclusions can be drawn from the evidence."

He said the world in which the defendants lived was "where lies are told, they are all innocent lies and that fantasy world where nobody tells anyone else what they have done and nobody displays any emotions".

'Shared motive'

He said that Becky's life was was "cruelly and callously" taken away from her by Mr Matthews and Ms Hoare, who operated as "a team" and had a "shared motive".

The QC added: "The contempt they have for her extended to the grotesque way in which her body was treated after her death."

Mr Mousley said Mr Matthews had shown a "complete absence of sorrow" towards Becky and refuted the claim that her death had been a "terrible accident".

He also said there was "no question" as to Ms Hoare's involvement, and likened her to Lady Macbeth - saying she had shown "hardly, if any indication of remorse".

Becky Watts' dismembered body was found in a shed several days after she vanished from her family home in Bristol in February

Mr Mousley asked the jury: "What has been his purpose in this trial? Has it been to tell you what really happened? Or has it been to try and get away with murder?"

Nathan Matthews, 28, has admitted killing and dismembering his 16-year-old stepsister, but denies murder and conspiracy to kidnap.

Shauna Hoare, 21, of Cotton Mill Lane, Bristol, denies murder and conspiracy to kidnap, a weapons charge, perverting the course of justice and preventing a burial.

Two other men, Donovan Demetrius, 29, and James Ireland, 23, deny assisting an offender.

The trial continues.